Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency is common in critically ill patients, and was reported to be associated with adverse outcomes. However, the effect of vitamin D deficiency on mortality in critically ill patients remains unclear.

Methods: We searched PubMed and EMBASE from the inception to July 2014 for cohort studies to assess the effect of vitamin D deficiency on the incidence of mortality in critically ill patients. Mortality-specific odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled with a random- or fixed-effect models when appropriate.

Results: Seven cohort studies with a total of 4,204 participants including 1,679 cases of vitamin D deficiency were included in this meta-analysis. Vitamin D deficiency was significantly associated with an increased hospital mortality (OR 1.76; 95% CI, 1.38 to 2.24; P < 0.001), with very low heterogeneity (I (2) = 2.3%; P = 0.402). The finding of increased hospital mortality in critically ill adult patients was consistently found in every stratum of our subgroup analyses.

Mentions:
Our initial search yielded 98 potentially relevant publications, 3 of which were excluded for duplicate publications. We excluded 62 studies based on title and abstract review. After reviewing the full text of the remaining 33 studies, we identified 7 cohort studies in this present meta-analysis [8,17-22]. The reasons for excluding studies in the final review included: reviews and editorial articles, small sample size (n <100), not relevant to our analysis, and studies not reporting adjusted ORs of risk estimates and the 95% CI (see the detail in Figure 1).Figure 1

Mentions:
Our initial search yielded 98 potentially relevant publications, 3 of which were excluded for duplicate publications. We excluded 62 studies based on title and abstract review. After reviewing the full text of the remaining 33 studies, we identified 7 cohort studies in this present meta-analysis [8,17-22]. The reasons for excluding studies in the final review included: reviews and editorial articles, small sample size (n <100), not relevant to our analysis, and studies not reporting adjusted ORs of risk estimates and the 95% CI (see the detail in Figure 1).Figure 1

Bottom Line:
Mortality-specific odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled with a random- or fixed-effect models when appropriate.The finding of increased hospital mortality in critically ill adult patients was consistently found in every stratum of our subgroup analyses.This meta-analysis suggests that vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased incidence of hospital mortality in critically ill adult patients.

Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency is common in critically ill patients, and was reported to be associated with adverse outcomes. However, the effect of vitamin D deficiency on mortality in critically ill patients remains unclear.

Methods: We searched PubMed and EMBASE from the inception to July 2014 for cohort studies to assess the effect of vitamin D deficiency on the incidence of mortality in critically ill patients. Mortality-specific odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled with a random- or fixed-effect models when appropriate.

Results: Seven cohort studies with a total of 4,204 participants including 1,679 cases of vitamin D deficiency were included in this meta-analysis. Vitamin D deficiency was significantly associated with an increased hospital mortality (OR 1.76; 95% CI, 1.38 to 2.24; P < 0.001), with very low heterogeneity (I (2) = 2.3%; P = 0.402). The finding of increased hospital mortality in critically ill adult patients was consistently found in every stratum of our subgroup analyses.